Will Rogers Phenomenon

Yaw of Averages

"When the Okies left Oklahoma and moved to California, they raised the average intelligence levels in both states."

-- Will Rogers, commenting on geographic migration
during the economic depression of the 1930s.

or an exercise in the metric system, a certain teacher asked her fourth-grade students to calculate their respective heights in centimeters. As they left the classroom for recess, she wrote their names on the blackboard alongside their heights in two lists as follows:

	*Okies*	*Calies*
	*Wailyn 144* *Nollyn 135* *Pailwyn 137* *Courtlyn 124* *Soulyn 140* *Gladwyn 128* *Ashlyn 122* *Ravyn 139* *Ulewyn 142* *Qualyn 138* *Zalyn 147* *Jenwyn 131* *Xelwyn 145*	*Marlyn 134* *Irwyn 146* *Haldwyn 129* *Edwyn 126* *Yawyn 130* *Kamlyn 132* *Louryn 133* *Fairlyn 127* *Oldewyn 136* *Dallwyn 125* *Terryn 141* *Vallewyn 143* *Brandyn 123*

"Which group is taller?" asked the teacher, when the class returned.

The students immediately set about to calculate the average heights of the two groups. They determined that the Okies were taller than the Calies by 3.6 centimeters (136.3 vs 132.7).

The teacher smiled and took chalk in hand. The students watched as she crossed out a name from one of the lists and added it to the other list.

"Do the calculations again," she said, clapping the chalk dust from her hands. "You will see that the average heights of both the Okies and the Calies have increased!"

Which name did the teacher select?

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William Penn Adair Rogers, American humorist, was born in 1879 in Oklahoma and known to the world as "the cowboy philosopher." Indeed, he worked as a cowboy in Oklahoma and performed cowboy rope-tricks in vaudeville, joining the Ziegfeld Follies in 1915 and was a great hit. He traveled all over the world, wrote books and columns, acted in movies and talked on the radio, joking incessantly about politics and customs of the times. An early aviation enthusiast, Will Rogers was killed with Wiley Post in a plane crash in 1935. {Return}